(8/7/13) Officers at 10 state correctional institutions have filed a lawsuit, seeking the same back pay that a state labor referee awarded to a guard at Red-granite.

The officers have asked a Dane County judge to grant a class action status, so about three-thousand present and former prison guards could be part of the case. The mass lawsuit was filed after Red-granite guard Paul Mertz was found to be short-changed by a-thousand dollars. The labor referee ruled against the state's relatively new policy of not paying correctional officers for things like roll call and equipment checks before starting a work-shift. A newly-formed guards' union is paying for the legal action. The state is still appealing the referee's decision, and has not commented on the new lawsuit. If the guards win, an award could run into the millions of dollars.